It’s been 30 years since DJ Jo Whiley first landed on
BBC Radio 1, co-presenting The Evening Session. Now aged 58, she’s in a new phase of her life; preparing for an empty nest, enthusiastically gardening (she’s a little obsessed with growing pumpkins), and dealing with feelings about her own mortality. The one thing she’s not concentrating on, though, is slowing down. “As long as I enjoy it and people still want to dance to the songs I play and hear my voice, I’ll carry on,” she tells us. “I don’t see any reason to stop as long as I still love
music and I still love talking to people. There’s an evolution with all the different things I do, and new people come along, but that doesn’t mean you’re not ‘necessary’. I mean, we still needed Steve Wright in our lives, we still needed Annie Nightingale championing music, and they always have a place in people’s lives. “My life is richer and I do different things now. I do the gardening and everything else, but first and foremost I love the music I play and the
Job that I do so I don’t want to stop. I don’t know what I’d do with myself.” Backing up Jo’s philosophy is the thing at the top of her to-do list – preparing to DJ her biggest gig yet (around 200,000 people) at the Isle of Wight festival in June. She wants to “make an impact”, she says. “Green Day are headlining on the other stage so I need to give them a run for their money.” Jo Whiley isn't concentrating on slowing down She's preparing to DJ at her biggest gig yet ( Image: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images) We’re chatting to Jo from her converted barnhouse in Northamptonshire, where she’s lived for around 14 years with her music executive husband Steve Morton and their four children. She was brought up in the county and returned there from
London because “the more children we had, the more space we needed”, she says. It’s clearly her happy place, full of the things she needs to stay mentally healthy and fulfilled – her two cats (a Bengal and a Ragdoll), two dogs (a faithful golden retriever and a sproodle), a stack of family board games, her garden, music and book collections and, of course, her husband of more than 30 years. Their children –
India, 31, Jude, 25, Cassius, 22, and 15-year-old Coco – are also a fairly permanent and welcome feature. Jo loves her big brood and she’s doing everything she can to be around with them for as long as possible. “We’ve lost a few people who are the same age as us and who we thought would be our
Friends forever and we’d be 80 years old and still having vodka shots on a Saturday night,” she shares. “But then all of a sudden ‘bam’, they’re gone. And it was due to
cancer, a brain tumour, Covid, various different things. It completely shakes you to your core and makes you realise that we’re all vulnerable, we’re not going to be here forever. “I want to live as long as I can. I think when you’ve got kids you feel terror at the thought of leaving them prematurely. So, I know I’ve got a duty to look after myself, and it’s the same for Steve. It’s a really serious fact now, rather than just being this ethereal thing.” This is where the gardening comes in. And while it seems a far cry from the energy-filled Jo we hear daily on her BBC Radio 2 show, or see interviewing the likes of Paul McCartney and Dolly Parton side stage at Glastonbury, she’s loving it. “I love the peace that comes with being in the garden on your own, and the hard work, it’s cathartic. I’ve really enjoyed learning about the circle of life. You can nurture things and they grow, then you think you’ve killed them and they die off, but they come back. I find it all fascinating.” Jo and Steve are currently working with Benecol after Steve (who is “quite holistic”, Jo says) was advised by doctors to go down the statin route. “It was a real shock, and you have a role within a family to be the support system when somebody’s going through something, so the more I learned about it the more I realised I needed to watch myself too, and the kids.” Jo admits she fears about her own mortality ( Image: BBC/Ray Burmiston) She and Steve have voiced their concerns over leaving their children early ( Image: Getty Images) While the garden might have stolen a little bit of Jo’s heart in recent years, the rest is firmly devoted to music – and the people who make it. It’s not surprising given how long she’s spent immersed in it, from her time as a researcher on Channel 4 ’s The Word to presenting Top Of The Pops in the mid-90s, and then becoming the first female presenter of the BBC Radio 1 Chart Show. Her natural presenting style and decision to talk about her family publicly was “learned from John Peel”. On the subject of legendary DJ John, Jo says, “The love for his family that came through in his storytelling was a real game-changer for me because, when I was growing up, I thought, ‘You’ve got to be a feisty indie chick and not mention that you’ve got a young baby.’ “Then one year I spoke to John when I was pregnant with Jude and he said to me, ‘I’m so envious you’re having another baby because I love family so much,’ and I used to hear him talking about it on the shows that he did, so I thought, ‘Obviously I should talk about them because they’re everything to me.’” The list of stars she has interviewed is impressive – Sir Paul McCartney, Dolly Parton,
Beyoncé, to name a few. But her favourite of all time is the
Queen of Pop herself –
Madonna. As well as being “honest”, she feels like the pair have sort of “grown up together” as they’ve met at various times over the years. “She’s just such an inspiration and a role model to me. I always like seeing where she’s at and what her thinking is.” Jo’s passion is what drives her and during the Covid pandemic she campaigned for people with learning disabilities to be prioritised in the vaccine rollout after her sister Frances contracted the virus in her care home and became seriously ill. Frances has the genetic disorder cri du chat, and diabetes. “I’ve got a real awareness of people with disabilities, so I just always want to draw attention to any injustices they might be going through and to encourage people to be more inclusive,” says Jo, who is ambassador for Mencap. As for music, Jo says, “Time has passed in the blink of an eye. I still feel like the young music fan who’s trying to get into broadcasting! I still have the same passion for music.” Jo is the official ambassador for Benecol’s Every Heart Deserves One campaign, raising awareness of the importance of cholesterol testing in partnership with Heart
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